I was recently reviewing some of the past events that I could remember without having to spend too many hours of study to bring up some subjects, which have a need for discussion. I can remember in the 50s several Navy airplanes being shot down by the Russians between the USSR and Japan and nothing was done by the U.S. I remember when the USS Pueblo was highjacked between Japan and North Korea, by the North Koreans, and nothing was done by our government. In some cases we create our own problems, as in Powers in the U2 and the Navy P3V landing on a Chinese Island.

The last incident is the failure of our government to react in the Libya attack on our real estate in Benghazi. We should either back them up with our military (not hired locals who fear retaliation) or we should not be there at all.

Let's talk about several of the events. In the case of the Pueblo what should have been done? We had Marine and Air Force fighters within 30 minutes of their location. You notify their government that we have launched our fighters and we expect to see all of their ships departing and the USS Pueblo heading towards safer waters and we will maintain a security blanket until they have returned to their base. We also tell them that there will be no notification of fighters being launched the next time. When the jets arrive they are hot to launch and the fleet is moving in that direction.

As for the Navy P3V pilot, he made the mistake. The plane should have been ditched at sea as far east as he could make it. As they head east they could remove most of the secret equipment and ditch the aircraft and be picked up by our people.

Now what brings up all of these thought processes; Libya and Benghazi? There is not one of our sons or daughters that should die for any screw-up by failures or state mistakes, as reported by the Independent Review Board. We had four or more die because there was no one in charge of the state's operation. Now all we have is people trying to cover their bottoms for their next job or just plain out lying. I'm sure that if we could go back in history we could find both systems (Republican and Democrats) had their faults, but that does not make it right.

In this case we have had Rice pass out faulty information, Clinton on leave of action worrying about 2016, Admiral Mike Mullens saying there was not enough time (then we should not have been there); what has happened to honesty? The Independent Review Board said they were systematic failures. I think a better word would be incompetence.

Page 2 of 2 - Louis Klemp is a Leavenworth resident and former Leavenworth County commissioner.